Zachary Hirschman

10/7/2014
Principles to Actions, pgs 17-24

My section of the reading focused on strategic task
selection. Not all tasks are considered equal; the book claims
that tasks which encourage high-level student thinking and
reasoning correlate to improved student learning. This makes
intuitive sense. The book provides guidelines for the spectrum
of leveled tasks. Low-level demands typically involve routine
memorization and completion of procedures without making
connections. Higher-level demands access connections to
students prior knowledge and culture, generally corresponding
to the deeper levels of Blooms taxonomy of learning. The book
strongly implies that word problems without specific direction
place a higher cognitive demand on students than other kinds of
problems. The book also acknowledges that well-selected tasks
may give students trouble; it advocates making general
suggestions and asking questions over giving specific
guidelines.
It is difficult for me to connect my own knowledge of
mathematics to this kind of task selection. I am good at
connecting to the abstract formulae and procedures advocated
against by the book. It will be important for me to recognize
the different strengths and needs of my students, and adjust my
task selection accordingly. It seems that in general, students
will learn better with the high-level tasks defined by the book.